beauty as a search image

preparing for serendipity

to find an arrowhead you need a search image,

an internal template within your mind 

as your eyes scans the ground,

so that out of a hodgepodge of stones

a shape can reveal itself

and then find itself in your hand,

in the woods you can learn the shapes natural to the forest

and artifice can slip out--the line of an old road or wall,

the same with movement, animal to the eye or sound to the ear,

I go to the wild and hope 

for a bear in the East





and a wolf in the West,

and sometimes I get the gift I ask for,

more often, the universe cares nothing for my “wish list,”

and surprises me with a gift I’m slow to realize can be just what I need,

in the last few days turkeys and woodpeckers have touched my world,

and, like a foodie omnivore, I have marveled at the spread before me,

I hope for peregrine falcon and find sun playing with misty mountains instead,

when galax and partridgeberry bloom before me, 





I treasure them,

as I do the perfection of tiny brown mushrooms I notice on a log,

I seek to have beauty as my search image,

and I am humbled by what can be revealed

if I am open to the surprise of whatever gift reveals itself.

by Henry H. Walker

June 27, ’14